Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has sent closure directions and show cause notice to two Ready Mix Concrete (RMC) plants in Deonar citing non-compliance of no-objection certificate from Building Proposal. This comes just two days after The Free Press Journal reported about violations by the plants.

During the ongoing winter session of the legislative assembly on Wednesday, Nawab Malik’s daughter and recently elected MLA from Anushakti Nagar Sana Malik highlighted the concerns of Govandi (E) residents regarding the issues caused due to the RMC plants run by JSW and Relcon in Deonar. Malik said that these plants violate multiple norms set by Maharashtra Pollution Control Board and result in health concerns for more than 50,000 residents.

Malik alleged that these plants are operating with expired licences and are situated less than 100 metres from residential areas, which violates guidelines set by Maharashtra Pollution Control Board. She also added that these plants violate multiple norms including inadequate dust control measures, lack of water sprinkling systems, absence of tree plantation around the plants and violation of prescribed operational hours.

She had urged the state government and concerned authorities to take immediate action against these plants and demanded that the operations of these plants should be seized immediately. She demanded that their functioning should be reviewed and they should be allowed to function only after their licences are renewed. After the FPJ reported about the issue, the BMC issued closure directions to JSW Green Cement and a show cause notice to Relcon Infrastructure.

The Building and Factory (B&F) department of BMC had issued a show cause notice to JSW Green Cement in October and had directed the company to comply with the observations listed by BMC’s Environment and Climate Change (E&CC) department, and submit validation permission within a week. As JSW failed to submit the permission, the BMC has asked the company to stop all the activities of RMC plant with immediate effect.

Similarly, the E&CC department had visited the Relcon RMC plant in October and had observed that tin sheets around the construction site were missing, air pollution monitoring records were not shown to the BMC, waste was not transported to designated sites and access road to the plant was not maintained.

The B&F department also mentioned that the permission for the RMC plant was given in 2020 for only 36 months and the revalidated permissions for every six months have not been submitted by the company. It also added that Relcon Infrastructure was not complying with the safety standard norms which is causing nuisance in the surrounding area. A week’s time has been given to the plant to comply with the highlighted requirements.

The department has also asked MPCB to verify the compliances and submit a report within 15 days. It has also asked the executive engineer of the B&F Eastern Suburbs to clarify about the validation permission and distance criteria for Relcon plant and has asked for a report within 15 days.

“Continuous operations of these plants has resulted in deposition of cement dust across residential area. The operations of these plants continue despite clear violation of guidelines, expired licenses and public health and environmental concerns. Action against them is crucial for well being of not only Govandi but entire Mumbai where pollution is at rise,” Malik had said in the assembly.